HIMALAYA, the Journal of the Association for Nepal and Himalayan Studies Volume 39 Number 1 Article 8 July 2019 The Soteriological Context of a Tibetan Oracle Katarina Turpeinen University of California, Berkeley, [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.macalester.edu/himalaya Recommended Citation Turpeinen, Katarina. 2019. The Soteriological Context of a Tibetan Oracle. HIMALAYA 39(1). Available at: https://digitalcommons.macalester.edu/himalaya/vol39/iss1/8 This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 4.0 License. This Research Article is brought to you for free and open access by the DigitalCommons@Macalester College at DigitalCommons@Macalester College. It has been accepted for inclusion in HIMALAYA, the Journal of the Association for Nepal and Himalayan Studies by an authorized administrator of DigitalCommons@Macalester College. For more information, please contact [email protected]. The Soteriological Context of a Tibetan Oracle Acknowledgements The author would like to thank Lhamo Pema Khandro for patiently answering her questions in a series of interviews and allowing her to witness the possession rituals. She is also grateful to the nuns of Tsho Pema, especially Ani Yangtsen Drolma for guiding her in the social dynamics of the village, as well as Prof. Jacob Dalton for offering many helpful suggestions that shaped her writing. This research article is available in HIMALAYA, the Journal of the Association for Nepal and Himalayan Studies: https://digitalcommons.macalester.edu/himalaya/vol39/iss1/8 The Soteriological Context of a Tibetan Oracle Katarina Turpeinen This paper contributes to the study of Tibetan which is a practice of a village oracle often oracles by analyzing a distinctive case of a regarded as involving mainly mundane and contemporary Tibetan oracle living in exile pragmatic ends, is conspicuously integrated in India. The oracular practice and personal with the soteriological, supramundane history of Lhamo, or ‘Goddess,’ present orientation of Buddhism. several unusual features compared to other Keywords: Tibetan Buddhism, oracle, possession, trance, healing. ethnographic accounts of Tibetan oracles. The ritual of possession is performed behind closed doors hidden from clients, and the medium typically engages in oracular ingestion multiple times during every trance. Her trance sessions also appear orderly and lack an intermediary figure who decodes the oracle’s enigmatic statements. What do these features of her oracular activities illustrate? How do they feature in her life story and relationships to other religious specialists in the area and the surrounding community? This paper outlines my ethnography of Lhamo’s practice and situates it in the context of Tibetan oracles, arguing that Lhamo’s oracular possession, 42 | HIMALAYA Spring 2019 Introduction but is also different from oracles practicing in Tibet due to her greater access to the Buddhist establishment and keen The Tibetan practice of oracles, or spirit mediums, is a form engagement with it. These factors, in turn, influence the of ritualized possession that entails practitioners falling soteriological orientation of her practice. into trances and becoming possessed by mundane deities that speak and act through them. This paper discusses Oracles in the Tibetan Buddhist Cultural Area the distinctive practice of a Tibetan female oracle, Lhamo, whose case offers new information to the study of Tibetan In the Tibetan oracular possession, the medium becomes oracles. Lhamo’s trances demonstrate how the possession voluntarily possessed in a ritualized setting by one or of a village oracle—often regarded as involving mainly more Tibetan gods and goddesses of mundane type. worldly and pragmatic ends—is notably integrated with (Diemberger, 2005: 127; Day, 1989: 9.) The tradition Buddhist soteriology, or the supramundane goal to tran- distinguishes this type of possession from an involuntary scend cyclic existence and attain nirvāṇa. After a brief possession by demonic spirits, since the oracles invite one introduction to oracles in the Tibetan cultural area, the of the gods with whom they have an established relation- paper then describes my ethnography of Lhamo’s oracular ship to take possession of their body. The main tasks of possession, which includes an analysis of its distinctive the oracles are to act as healers and to give counsel. Both features in the context of Tibetan oracles and an exam- functions derive their efficacy from the presence of a god ination of how these features relate to the soteriological in the medium’s body. Oracular possession is widespread context of her practice. I also discuss Lhamo’s social across the Tibetan Buddhist cultural area in Tibet, Nepal, position and her life story as an example of reviving a and the Indian Himalayas, and has attracted a growing non-monastic village tradition of possession rituals in exile. number of academic studies, most notably Diemberger’s research on Tibetan oracles (2005: 113-168), Sophie Day’s This paper contributes to Himalayan Studies by presenting work on possession in Ladakh (1989: 206-222; 1990), and a distinctive case of oracular possession that broadens and Berglie’s publications on Tibetan and Sherpa mediums in diversifies our understanding of Tibetan oracles. Lhamo’s Nepal (1976: 5-108; 1983). case is significant in its notable soteriological orienta- tion while it simultaneously contains many mundane The main division of numerous supernatural beings in elements similar to oracles in the Tibetan cultural area. Tibetan Buddhist cosmology is that of supramundane The Buddhist soteriology is integrated in Lhamo’s practice (jig rten las ‘das pa) and mundane (‘jig rten pa) deities. The through three principal strategies. First, soteriological gods and spirits that possess Tibetan oracles belong in the principles are used to explain mundane aspects of Lhamo’s latter category (Diemberger 2005: 130). The supramun- oracular possession and reframe the practice as serving dane deities are enlightened and thus synonymous with the Buddhist goal of enlightenment. For example, oracular Buddhas that have transcended the suffering of cyclic ingestion, or the practice of ingesting substances extracted existence, while the category of mundane deities contains from clients’ bodies, is described in terms of karma and different types of worldly gods and spirits of a varying and supramundane power. Second, Buddhist values influence often volatile character. The mundane gods have super- the character of Lhamo’s practice rendering it peaceful natural powers beyond humans, but are still caught in the and orderly, conspicuously lacking the fierce, theatrical wheel of death and rebirth and subject to karmic laws. and unpredictable elements that frequently characterize Tibetan oracular possession. Third, Buddhist practices The mundane gods are often associated with particular facilitate and enable Lhamo’s possession, as the gods locations and are also hierarchically ranked. The gods could successfully possess her only after she engaged in and spirits worshipped in monasteries are higher ranked prolonged purification practices. than the gods associated with various natural locations or enshrined in the edifices of the laity. Both categories Lhamo’s case also presents a new angle to the study of of mundane gods contain a notable variety of different oracles due to the presence of an unusual, symbiotic rela- entities that are associated with the three layers of Tibetan tionship between the medium and the possessing goddess, cosmology: various gods (lha) inhabit the upper regions, both of whom utilize the possession ritual as a tool to somewhat fierce type of spirits (btsan) reside in the middle accumulate karmic merit in order to achieve enlighten- regions, and serpent spirits (klu) are linked to the lower ment. In addition, her case highlights both the continuities regions, as they reside in water sources or underground and changes occurring in the Tibetan oracular tradition terrains. The English words ‘god’ and ‘spirit’ are often due to the conditions of exile. As Lhamo revives her applied interchangeably to these entities. The lowest ancient family tradition in India, her possession is not only in rank are malicious spirits, or demons (‘dre). They are distinctive in the context of Himalayan oracles in general, sometimes thought to be prone to harming people since HIMALAYA Volume 39, Number 1 | 43 they lack food and a dwelling place. If provided with these he or she is invited by the medium. This is performed necessities, demons can become protective spirits. The by chanting invocation prayers in front of an altar that position of all spirits and gods in the hierarchy is also contains offerings to gods and Buddhas, images of deities, somewhat flexible, as their rank can increase if they are a lamp, incense, and various oracular paraphernalia such incorporated into a monastic pantheon. Monastic gods as a mirror, hand drum, and emblems for divination. and spirits are generally protector deities of Buddhism The mirror (me long) is the single most important item (chos skyong, dam can), and some may progress to the rank of an oracle. It is usually placed on the altar atop a bowl of supramundane deities if they are believed to have of rice. Many oracles practice mirror divination, which attained enlightenment. (Day 1989: 113) However, Lhamo’s allows them to see into hidden aspects of both mundane case problematizes